When workers are injured on the job, physical pain and mental suffering continue long after the outside injuries heal. Often, the lifetime effects of workplace accidents can exacerbate existing financial difficulties and leave victims to grapple with lingering physical disabilities.
If you are suffering from injuries sustained on the job, contact personal injury attorneys like these to learn how to mitigate the lifetime effects of workplace injuries. That way, your life post-accident won’t involve floundering in a tsunami of medical debt. With legal experts at your side, you can maximize compensation and steer clear of rough financial seas.
While the victim in question can sustain severe financial and physical injuries, workplace accidents can also directly impact the business itself. For example, OSHA fines can cost over $136,000 daily for repeat violations.
The oversight agency can hold a company responsible for fines in the millions and award criminal penalties against owners who do not remedy these hazardous work environments.
While businesses receive fines and punishments for workplace accidents, those injured experience long-lasting problems, much like those highlighted below.
6 Lifetime Effects Workplace Accidents
Post-Injury Depression
Some occupational injuries result in post-injury depression. In some cases, depression doesn’t show up until a few months after the injury.
How to reduce workplace injuries? Treating post-injury depression with medication and therapy can be expensive, adding to the lifetime effects of workplace accidents. Along with depression, people injured at work often suffer from anxiety, mood disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other mental health complications.
Difficulty Returning To Work And Recovering
When people have injuries at work, resulting mental illnesses make it difficult for the employee in question to return successfully to their previous jobs. Not to mention, depression makes it difficult for people to feel healthy and enjoy their daily lives. If they cannot return to work, their financial status suffers, turning depression and healing into a vicious circle of career mishaps.
Sadly, people with workplace injuries are over two times more likely to have depression than those who are not injured at work. Depression can be debilitating and last for years, long after the workplace injury occurred.
Workplace Accidents Lingering Health Effects
Workplace injuries might look like they have healed, but they can turn into other long-term health problems. For example, those injured might develop anxiety, leading to health woes like ulcers or high blood pressure.
They might also experience chronic pain or arthritis as a result of a physical injury. Some victims also have to live with side effects from their medications, prescribed initially as healing agents.
Amputation And Other Serious Injuries
In severe injuries, employees might need life-changing treatment. For example, some workplace injuries sustained are so serious that amputation is the only option. Other injuries result in paralysis or changes in gaits.
Traumatic brain injuries at work also result in lifestyle changes. Concussions and other forms of TBI require treatment, rest, and recovery that can last a lifetime.
Devastating Financial Hardships
Even if the employer pays for medical expenses and worker’s compensation, recovery costs can create a lifetime of financial hardships.
Worker’s compensation only lasts for a limited time, and health care expenses continue to increase. If a diagnosis is not attributed to the workplace injury, then the patient, not the employer, is usually held responsible for payment.
For employees who have mental illnesses or other health problems that did not occur at the same time as the injury, treatment expenses are handed off to the employees rather than the employers.
Don’t Suffer Alone
Many people overlook the long-term effects of workplace accidents. It’s vital to reach out and get the help you need. A personal injury attorney can help you manage the long-term effects of workplace accidents. For support and guidance going forward, contact legal representation.
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